Champagne and Real Pain
by Rivendell101
Summary: NaLu Week Day 2: Vulnerable. Alcohol and pain just don't mix, in fact, all it does is induce tears. It doesn't change the way Lucy looks at Natsu though, he deserves to be vulnerable sometimes.


**AN: Day 2 NaLu prompt: Vulnerable. Enjoy! Rated for language.**

**Champagne and Real Pain**

**{Baby, I can't believe I ever lived or breathed without you.}**

Lucy isn't really sure what's going on at this point. One minute she's getting ready for bed and the next she's watching a shirtless Natsu stumble into her apartment, swearing up a storm. Normally this wouldn't be a very big deal, actually she would consider this to be a usual occurrence. Natsu would break in to her house to complain about something Gray did at least once a week.

Only, Natsu came in through the door, not the window, he's not wearing a shirt, and he isn't talking about Gray. He isn't really talking about anything. He's just cursing to nobody in particular and—and he's drunk.

Natsu never get's drunk. His tolerance is too high and his body just burns it off. She doesn't even want to think about how much he had to drink to actually be _stumbling_. She doesn't even know why he would feel the need to drink that much in the first place. The won the Grand Magic Games and saved the world after all. Okay, so maybe that is a reason to drink, but not this much. This is the kind of drunk stupor someone goes into when they try to forget.

Lucy knows this, because she's been there, she's seen this before.

After her mother died, he father drank himself into oblivion. It usually ended with him screaming and throwing things at her, and then proceeding to cry for several minutes before he would pass out.

So why is Natsu that drunk?

Speaking of Natsu, said man trips on his own feet and slams into the wall harshly. She wouldn't have been worried at all, but he doesn't get up and she can hear him let out something that sounds like a whimper, and Natsu doesn't whimper, ever. So Lucy does the logical thing. She jumps to her feet and tries to help Natsu to his feet.

The key word there being _tries_.

She's more than just a little bit shocked when he fights her, swatting at her and actually catching her cheek with a sloppy uppercut. She easily brushes it off though, she knows he didn't mean to do it—he probably doesn't even _know_ that he did it. He shoves her backwards, and she lands on the floor harshly.

"Ouch," she hisses, rubbing her back. "Natsu, what the hell was that for?" she asks, not really expecting an answer. He murmurs something under his breath that she can't hear. "Natsu?" she says again. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"You're dead," he says thickly, hands clenching into fists at his sides. "You died." He starts shaking horribly and she feels her heart leap into her throat. Oh. _Oh_. He sobs and suddenly she feels like crying too, because he's right. Technically she did die, well, Future Lucy died, but it was still her. "Dammit," he snarls, fist slamming against the floor. "I let you die."

She immediately crawls across the floor so that she's kneeling between his bent legs, timidly reaching out for his hand. He flinches at the contact, but she threads her fingers through his anyway. He won't hurt her. "Natsu," she whispers, her other hand going towards his face, fingers skimming across his chin and then his cheek. She cups his face, thumb brushing across his lips, which tremble at the touch. "I'm right here," she tells him, squeezing his hand tightly. "I'm alive and I'm right here," she promises him.

"But—" he starts to protest, but chokes on a cry instead. Natsu leans into her touch, his free hand moving to cover the one resting against his cheek. He presses a light kiss against her thumb and then looks up at her. Lucy's heart all but breaks when she sees that he's crying. "I let you die," he repeats, quieter this time. "I let him kill you," he says softly.

Lucy never knew that it—her future self dying, that it—would affect him this badly. Sure, they're good friends, best friends even, but she didn't think he would take it this badly. Badly enough to drink so much that he's crying and lying on her floor, that is. It doesn't suit him. Natsu is always the goofy one that tries to make everyone else smile, he's the optimistic one. Sometimes she forgets that he's only human. Yes, he was trained by a dragon, but he isn't one himself. Sometimes he needs comfort too.

"No," she tells him gently, her thumb rubbing soothing circles against the back of his hand. "That wasn't your fault," she says. "You didn't let him hurt me." Her hand squeezes his softly, slowly, testing him. Normal Natsu would just smile at her and say thanks, maybe pull her into a hug too, but this is not normal Natsu, she has no idea how he's going to react to—well, everything.

Suddenly his hands pull away from hers, and then she's being dragged across the floor and pressed against Natsu's chest. His arms wrap around her tightly, and on instinct she throws her own arms around his neck.

"I couldn't stop it," he whispers. "He hurt you—he killed you," he stresses, "and I couldn't do anything to stop it." His forehead drags against her shoulder roughly. "I couldn't save you."

Natsu keeps muttering little phrases like "my fault", "you're dead", and "couldn't save you". To Lucy it sounds like a bunch of garbled nonsense, but to Natsu it must mean something, he wouldn't be drunk and sobbing in her arms if it meant nothing.

Lucy sighs shakily, she has never seen Natsu like this before, and it doesn't take long for her to realize that she doesn't like, not at all. Natsu is usually all sunshine and determination. He's protective and silly, but he knows when he knows when he needs to stop joking around. He's a fighter—_he's strong_. Natsu is so strong, but it's not because of all training he does. No, it's his heart. Natsu's ability to forgive almost everyone is what makes him so strong. He's like a fire that never goes out—he's always there in the darkness, shining when all other lights go out.

But he needs time to be vulnerable too. Nobody can be strong forever, and Natsu deserves to let go for once. He's always strong, and he has to learn that he doesn't need to be. He has to learn that people are going to be there for him when he needs them, they aren't just going to leave—and if they do leave, he has to learn that sometimes they come back. He has to learn that he can cry—it's nothing for him to be ashamed of. Crying isn't a weakness, it just shows that you care. It's okay to be sad and hurt.

It doesn't make him any less than what he is.

"You did save me, Natsu," she whispers, running her hand through his odd colored hair. Her fingers catch on a snag, but she works through it, continuing to massage his scalp softly. Her other hand smooths over his tense shoulder blades, trying to get him to calm down a little. "I'm sitting right in front of you," she continues, "I'm alive, and I'm breathing, and it's because of you." His fingers twitch against her back, digging into her skin painfully, but she ignores it. "Everything's okay, I'm right here. You didn't let him hurt me." She rocks the to of them gently, sinking into him fully. He _needs_ this. "I'm okay, you're okay, we're okay," she tells him. "We're both okay."

He lets out another heart wrenching cry, and she can feel his tears sliding across her skin and sinking into her shirt. "But you died," he says again, lips moving against the side of her neck. "You died."

"And you changed it," she reminds him. "You changed that future, that's why I'm here." She squeezes him tightly. "You didn't let me die, Natsu, you saved me." She pulls away from him and cups his face in both her hands, wiping away his tears. "You didn't like that future, so you changed it." She wrap her arms around him again and starts placing small, light kisses across his cheek and jaw and chin. He needs these touches right now. He needs to know that she's okay, and if this is how she has to do it, then this is how she's going to do it.

"But—" She shushes him softly, standing up. His eyes follow her, red and puffy from crying. She reaches down for him and, ever so slowly, she manages to help him to his feet. She holds both of his hands in hers, squeezing them gently, and takes a step backwards, taking him with her. He eyes her curiously—or, what she thinks is curiously. It's hard to tell considering he was just having a breakdown, and is still completely drunk—but he follows her nonetheless.

"Come on," she whispers, "we'll finish this when you're not drunk."

* * *

Natsu wakes up with a splitting headache and the strange urge to throw up, but he's far to comfortable to move. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut tightly and curls closer to the little body wrapped around his. His fingers brush across smooth skin, trailing up the girl's back, and he buries his face in her hair. He vaguely recognizes the fact that his legs are a tangled mess with hers, and his arms are wrapped around her almost too tightly, but he knows that she doesn't really mind.

Lucy—he knows that it's Lucy. There's no other person that he crawls into bed with at night, and he can recognize her scent anywhere. It's cherries and almond oil, with something citrusy and spicy hidden underneath—is a huge cuddler at night. She can complain about him breaking in all that she wants, but he knows that she likes it. She wouldn't let him get away with it if she didn't.

He kisses the top of her head lightly, breathing in her scent. She smells like home to him, and sunlight. Truthfully, she is his home, and he is terrified of losing her again. Future Rogue killed her once, he took her away and Natsu wasn't able to do anything about it. It all happened so fast, but to Natsu it felt like a lifetime. It only took half a second for that shadow to pierce Future Lucy, but to Natsu there were fifty different ways that he could have stopped it.

He should have stopped it.

Future Rogue killed Future Lucy—he _murdered_ her right in front of his own eyes—and Natsu didn't do a damn thing to stop it, he practically _let_ her die. He let her die and that kills him a little bit inside. She was taken away from him so easily, and it could happen again. She could die on a mission, or she could be walking home and someone could attack her, there could be an accident that she wouldn't walk away from.

_He_ could be the one to hurt her, and he doesn't want that, not at all. Lucy means everything to him, and he can't let anything else happen to her. If she gets hurt again—if she _dies_, he won't know what to do with himself. After Future Lucy died he almost went berserk, and that was while he knew in the back of his mind that _his Lucy_ was still alive. If his Lucy actually does die—

Natsu's breath catches in his throat, it feels like he's been sucker punched in the stomach. Bile rises in his throat, but he pushes it back down. He will never let that happen. Never again. He can't lose her, not like that. If she dies, he won't know what to do.

Sometimes Natsu thinks about his life before he met Lucy. He doesn't understand how he was able to hold it together for so long before meeting her. Between losing Igneel and thinking that Lisanna was dead, he wonders how he managed to stay sane, then he found Lucy and everything seemed right again. All of the pieces just seemed to click together.

He can't even recall if he really knew who was before she knew him, flaws and all. It feels like a lifetime ago, but he knows that it's only been a little over a year that they've known each other, considering that the seven year gap doesn't count. He isn't exactly sure what he would do if she wasn't in his life, so many things wouldn't have happened, and that scares him a little bit. Slowly, but surly, she's managed to completely reshape is life, she put him on the path he's on now, and she doesn't even know that.

And in the blink of an eye that all could have disappeared.

If Future Rogue had actually managed to kill her, what would he do? He would have been blinded by rage and hatred and he probably would have died fighting Future Rogue. He would have been heartbroken if she really did die, and that would have killed him. She means so much to him, yet he almost lost her. He almost lost himself as well.

He isn't fit to save anyone. Not his friends, not his family, not himself. Nobody. Yet they all believe in him, they all trust him. He's so sick of always being strong. He failed Lucy, he let her die, Rogue killed her, and it was all his fault.

He has nightmares about it. Sometimes it's Future Rogue killing Future Lucy, sometimes it's Future Rogue killing _his_ Lucy.

Sometimes it's the present Rogue killing his Lucy.

It always ends the same way. Lucy dies and he's left holding her in his arms, screaming and crying as she bleeds out slowly. He an only sit there and watch as the light leaves her eyes and Rogue slips back into the shadows. He can't do anything but hold her as she dies. It makes him feel useless and he can always feel self-loathing start to bubble under his skin.

He tries not to think about it though. He doesn't want to think about it. He doesn't want to keep seeing he die every time he closes his eyes. Half the time he wakes up crying in the middle of the night, and he knows Happy isn't fairing much better.

He briefly wonders where the little exceed is, but is startled out of his thoughts by soft lips brushing against his naked shoulder, skimming over his guild mark. A shiver runs down his spine as she breaths over his skin, leaning forward to kiss the red mark on his arm.

"Are you ready to talk now?" Lucy asks him softly, moving so that she's looking up at him. Natsu sighs and leans his forehead against hers, their breaths mingling. He opens his eyes slowly, for the first time. He looks down at her, eyes running over every inch of her face, zeroing in on a pale blue and purple bruise on her cheek.

"Did I do this?" he whispers shakily, fingers ghosting over the damaged skin. Guilt and hatred for himself wells up in his chest. He hurt her. He actually hurt her. He doesn't remember what happened last night, but some how he managed to hurt her.

"It was an accident," she tells him. "You didn't mean to, I don't think you even realized that I was there." Her hand runs along his arm and she grips his shoulder tightly. "It's not your fault, and I'm not mad."

"That's not an excuse, Lucy," he says shamefully, nose bumping against hers apologetically. Even if it was an accident, that doesn't make it okay. He hurt her, and now he has to live with that. Luckily it's only a light bruise, it probably won't last more than a few days. He didn't hurt her that badly, he doesn't think he did. "Does it hurt?" he asks.

Her lips twitch into a smile. "No. I'm surprised there's even a bruise."

He sighs through his nose, lips brushing against her cheek. "What happened last night? And where's my shirt?"

"I don't know, you weren't wearing it when you got here," she tells him. "You were drunk and broke into my apartment," she tells him, arms wrapping around his back. He winces. He was drunk and he hit her. Great. He's never drinking again. "You were crying," she says softly, and his eyes widen. "You tripped and hit the floor, and when I tried to help you up thrashed around a bit, caught me the one time."

"I was crying," he whispers, dread flying through him. Oh no. _Oh no_. She can't know about how much her death affects him, she can't. She can't know how weak he really is.

"Natsu, you can talk to me," she says firmly, her nose nuzzling against his jaw and cheek and chin. "What happen to Future Lucy is not your fault, you should know that." Her lips brush across his and he holds his breath, not sure if it was an accident or not. "You can talk to me about it, I'm not going to judge you."

"I know," he replies. "I know, but I don't want you to see me like that." His arms tighten around her and he refuses to meet her eyes. "I don't want you to see me cry," he continues. "I don't want you to think I'm—"

"Weak?" she finishes for him. "Useless? Not good enough?" Each word cuts through him like a knife, and he can only nod. "You're not any of those things, Natsu, no one thinks that." He squeezes his eyes shut. "It's okay to be vulnerable sometimes," she tells him, lips placing soft butterfly kisses along his jaw line. "It doesn't make you less." He inhales sharply.

"How can you say that?" A tear runs down his face. "How can you say that, when I failed you. I let you die."

She wipes it away. "You didn't." Her mouth goes back to his chin, and a shiver runs down his spine. "It's okay to cry you know, it won't change the way I look at you." He doesn't say anything, just nods and let's the tears out. He _needs_ this.

* * *

**AN: Done! Yay!**


End file.
